Social stratification of authors revealed from the coauthorship network

Abstract

Seven bibliographies frm the fields of medicine, physics and social sciences were used. The authors were classified by groups i n accordance with the number of publications per author. Studies were made t o detenine the statistically expected number of coauthorships by proceeding fran assuming an independence of coauthorship between authors from the number of their publications. Hypothesis : The proportion of the sum of coauthorship found between authors with the same number of publications t o the sun of the statistically expected one i s larger than the proportion of the sum of coauthorships found between authors with a different number of publications t o the sum of the statistically expected one. This hypothesis could be verified i n all seven bibliographies. Coauthorships between authors do not come i n t o being independently of the nunber of their publications, i .e. o f their social ranks.